A Relinquished Homestead Application

I'm continuing to experiment with the "Nebraska, Homestead, Records, 1861-1936," that were recently posted on Ancestry.com. The image below appeared in the homestead application of a Roolf Aden in Butler County, Nebraska. It makes the point that effective searching needs to include the extended family as this John Aden does not appear in the index to these records as he was not the final claimant.

Apparently John H. Aden was a previous claimant to the property Roolf eventually homesteaded. The image used in this post was apparently taken from the back of a receipt John H. Aden received for his initial payment for filing his claim to the property in question.

One word is slightly difficult to read.

But the circled word on this statement is not really hard to read when done in context and when one realizes that John H Aden was not the man completing the claim. "Relinquish" makes perfect sense in this context.

The image reads:

"I hereby Relinquish to the Government of the United States My Right to the Within described land this 26th April 1872"

Attest [not certain]

[signed] John H Aden

No relationship between the Adens is given, but the Bureau of Land Management really was not concerned about that. In a future post we will see how I determined what this document was releasing as there is no indication as to what fronts and backs should be paired when using these images on Ancestry.com.

But reading the whole file located this reference to John Aden.

Aden could have an incomplete homestead application file that could provide additional information on him. Those records are at the National Archives. There should also be an entry for John's claim in the tract books from the Bureau of Land Management.